Farmers harvest basil in Rafah, Gaza Strip on Nov. 25, hoping they would be able to export the following day. / Sarah Lynch

by Sarah Lynch
Special for USA TODAY, USA TODAY

by Sarah Lynch
Special for USA TODAY, USA TODAY

GAZA CITY â?? Flower farmers huddled around a fire to brew tea in a room stacked with carnations as they prepared for the export season, beginning early this month.

On a cold and rainy recent morning, the farmers weren't quite sure when their flowers might leave the Gaza Strip.

"We're always concerned and worried because the border with Israel can close at any time," said Hamdan Hijazi, one of five farmers in his family.

When shipments were blocked from going through Israel in the past, "we would give the flowers to our wives and to our animals," he said.

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza of many exports as well as imports after Hamas took over the Palestinian territory by force in 2007. Israel's idea was to put pressure on Hamas to renounce terror, but barrages of rockets fired from Gaza at Israel over the years show that the restrictions on goods have not altered its behavior.

Hamas fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel pummeled Hamas targets with airstrikes to halt attacks. A cease-fire was followed by talks of easing the blockade Israel had been enforcing to keep weapons out of the hands of Hamas, which refuses to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist.

In the spirit of a truce, Israel allowed Gaza fishermen to go farther out to sea to fish than they have in years. Egypt loosened restrictions on individuals traveling in and out of Gaza, and tunnels at the Egyptian border are used to smuggle all manner of goods, including weapons.

Gazans say life and business will remain difficult if the blockade is not eased significantly.

"To have good business, you have to have free movement," said Mahmoud Yazeji, chairman of the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce for Gaza Governorates. "Now we are under closure. We are in the biggest jail in the world."

"We cannot export our products, so we cannot make a good economy if our economy is closed," he said.

Aaron Sagui, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, says the Gazans need only look to their own leaders for the key to unlock the blockade.

Sagui says Israel will agree to lift the blockade if Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist, accepts previous agreements Israel has made with the Palestinian Authority and renounces terrorism. Those were the conditions set by the Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - involved in mediating peace in the Middle East.

If that happened, "we wouldn't have to be worried about terrorists and the weapons reaching them," Sagui said.

Gaza borders Egypt and Israel on the Mediterranean coast. It is difficult for many people in Gaza, particularly the young, to travel outside because of overall movement restrictions by Israel and Egypt. This wasn't always the case.

In the late 1960s, Gaza was tailing Israel's economy, said Ali AbuShahla, director general of an engineering consulting company who is involved in politics, and by the mid-1990s, Gaza started to flourish.

"Everybody was concerned about turning Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East," AbuShahla said.

After Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and a year later took full control of the strip in a violent takeover against rival Palestinian faction Fatah, which controls the West Bank, Israel and Egypt tightened border restrictions to tie Hamas' hands.

Before the most recent conflict in Gaza, almost nothing here was in short supply, experts and locals said.

Food, medicine and goods are allowed into Gaza through an Israeli cargo crossing once trucks are inspected for weapons or materials Israel says can be used to make war. Some goods are delivered through the tunnels, and others are locally produced. The main exceptions are heavy vehicles and medical equipment.

"People over the past six years learned where and how and when" to bring things, said Omar Shaban, director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza, a think tank.

About $1 billion worth of products come through the tunnels with Egypt each year, the Chamber of Commerce's Yazeji said. About $2 billion in goods come to Gaza through the single border crossing with Israel, although four crossings in total are equipped for commercial use.

In 2011, an average of 136 trucks entered Gaza each day, down 34% from the 401 trucks entering daily before the blockade, according to a December 2011 report by Oxfam, an international development organization.

Still, "regarding food, everything is available from Israel," shop owner Osama Zakoud said on a recent afternoon.

"But life is not about food," Shaban said. "You have food, but then you don't have fuel. You have food, but you don't have concrete, then you don't have jobs, then people become unemployed. It's a life. It's a package,"

Israel bans concrete, steel and metal pipes for private use from entering Gaza through its border, fearing Hamas will build military structures. The primary purpose of the tunnel trade is for construction materials, as well as cars and fuel, which costs more than 50% less than fuel coming through Israel, locals said.

"Everybody likes to get things from Egypt because they're much cheaper," shop owner Zakoud said.

Roughly 70% of food in his store on a recent afternoon came through the Rafah tunnels, many of which were recently destroyed by Israeli strikes.

The International Monetary Fund reported in September that Gaza experienced 20% annual growth in its GDP in 2010 and 2011 after the easing of tight restrictions on imports. Growth declined to 6% in the first quarter of 2012, but that was still far above economic growth for the region and the West.

Gaza's growth is due largely to a booming construction sector, according to the IMF, but unemployment remained very high at 30%.

The IMF said the economic slowdown in January-March was due to several factors, including "severe financing difficulties, declining donor aid especially from regional donors, and slower easing of restrictions on movement and access." In Gaza, it was "compounded" by a drop in agriculture due to unfavorable weather conditions and electricity and fuel shortages.

Until Hamas' takeover of Gaza, 85% of the territory's exports went to Israel and the West Bank, according to the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement. After the takeover, Israel banned Gaza from shipping to Israel and the West Bank out of fear that it would try to transit bombs that way and to pressure Hamas to change its anti-Israel position.

Israel does allow limited exports of seasonal agricultural products to Europe, though Gaza says such products are better suited to markets in Israel and the West Bank.

Israel allowed a partnership with the Netherlands for the export of flowers, involving about 100 truckloads per month at the height of the season. That compares with an average of 2,000 trucks that left Gaza each month before the closure was imposed, the legal center says.

"This season, I'm out of business," said Saady Hijazi, a distant relative of Hamdan, who grew flowers for 17 years. "Since 2006-2007, I haven't made any profit."

Shaban of Pal-Think says economic opportunity is a key to peace.

"We have more intellectuals, painters, poetry, art, culture, journalists," Shaban said, in addition to artisans and furniture makers whose history on the Mediterranean coast dates back 5,000 years. "This place could turn into a tool for peace, for prosperity in the Middle East."

Israel says that was the dream when it uprooted the lives of thousands of Israelis living in dozens of Jewish communities in Gaza in 2005.

Israel was told by the international community that giving Palestinians the whole of Gaza, which its military had controlled since a war against Arab armies in 1967, would bring peace and prosperity to the territory, said Ido Aharoni, Israel's consul general in New York in a letter to U.S. news media.

"In reality, the Gaza Strip has become a haven of terror," he said.

Gaza is home to the Al Qassam Brigades, the Hamas wing committed to Israel's destruction. Shaban insists that the more poverty there is in Gaza, the more radicals it creates.

Easing the restrictions would require a complete overhaul of Israel's policy that says the blockade keeps weapons out of Gaza and curtails support for Hamas.

"The economic undermining [of Gaza] is a key point for the Israeli government," said David Hartwell, Middle East analyst at IHS Jane, a defense and security intelligence agency in London. "The blockade works because it isolates the Palestinians. â?¦ it is something that's tangible."

Hamas has existed for nearly 25 years and has a police force, controls most of Gaza's municipalities, and saturates the judicial system. The group uses dictatorial tactics and disrespects human rights, democracy and personal freedoms.

Those in Gaza who oppose Hamas say they have little sway.

"We have two options: to have the rule of law or the rule of the jungle," said Khalil Abu Shammala, director of the Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights in Gaza. "Hamas chooses the second."

Last month, women were attacked by Hamas police for demonstrating in favor of Palestinian reconciliation. Six men were publicly killed, and one of the bodies was dragged through the streets for allegedly collaborating with Israel.

"This war put aside all the criticism against Hamas," said Mkhaimar Abusada, political science professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. "In terms of war, it's a time for the Palestinians to stand all together against Israel."

Many farmers remain displeased that politics affects their lives and economic production.